Shooting Raw with the Nokia Lumia 1020

The Nokia Lumia 1020's 1/1.5-inch sensor is capable of capturing a lot of detail and by converting its DNG files in a Raw processor you can squeeze a touch more out of it.

Smartphone cameras have improved a great deal over the last couple of years, and those improvements have had a dramatic impact on the market for consumer-level compact cameras. Sales have plummeted as most consumers simply don't see the point of carrying and paying for a compact camera when their smartphone delivers image quality that is beyond what's needed for social sharing and on-screen viewing.

The situation is slightly different in the enthusiast compact space, though. Compact cameras targeted at enthusiast users come with one feature that until recently no smartphone could offer: Raw file capture. The ability to process Raw files and modify shooting parameters after capture on your computer's high-resolution monitor is something many serious photographers don't want to live without.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 comes with one of the best smartphone cameras we have tested.

After installing the Nokia "Black" firmware update you can now also capture images in DNG Raw format.

What does that mean for mobile photographers though? We already had a look at the Nokia 1520's Raw files in our full full review of Nokia's latest model and found the advantages of shooting Raw on the 1520 to be limited. Of course you have the flexibility to modify image parameters such as white balance, sharpness or contrast in post-processing, but it's difficult to squeeze additional detail out of the Raw files and the 1/2.5-inch sensor's limited dynamic range means only very minor shadow and highlight corrections can be applied.

Therefore, we were quite curious to find out how the Lumia 1020's Raw files would fare in processing. In our review we were quite impressed with the phone's JPG output and with its larger 1/1.5-inch imaging sensor. We expect the 1020's sensor to offer more dynamic range than the small-sensor 1520. We installed the Nokia "Black" update on our Lumia 1020 and then went out to take pictures in a variety of light situations. Back in the office we processed them in Adobe ACR to see if they allow for any improvement over the out-of-camera JPEGs.

Image Detail

The JPEG-engines of digital cameras apply detail-smearing noise reduction to the image-data that is captured by the sensor, even at low ISOs. If you need maximum detail in an image and are happy to accept some noise, converting a Raw-file with noise reduction set to zero is therefore a good option. Most Raw-converters will apply some noise reduction, even with the slider in the zero position, but it's still the closest you can get to a noise-reduction-free image.

We experimented with different sharpening parameters in Adobe ACR in order to maximize detail in our Nokia Lumia 1020 DNG file.

To find out how much, if any, additional detail you can squeeze out of the Nokia's Raw files we processed a couple of low-ISO files with different noise reduction and sharpening settings in Adobe ACR.

For the first sample we set luminance noise reduction to zero and applied some fine sharpening (Amount 56, Radius 0.8, Detail 41). In the 100% crop of the brickwork below you can see that higher levels of detail can be achieved but the difference will only be visible at a 100% magnification. Apart from the obvious tone curve differences, edge sharpness is better in the converted Raw file and some additional low-contrast detail in the brickwork of the church has been revealed. On the downside you also get noticeably more grain in areas of plain color, such as the sky or the green roof of the building, and the shadows.

In a second step we downscaled the converted Raw image to 5MP in order to compare it to the 5MP JPEG that is captured alongside the DNG file. At the reduced image size the Raw file's grain is almost entirely averaged out but the increase in detail is gone, too. Thanks to Nokia's pretty efficient downscaling algorithm it's almost impossible to see a difference between the 5MP out-of-camera JPEG and our processed image.

Overall, in terms of detail, processing your images is only worth the effort if you are planning on using them at native resolution (the images below were captured separately because the camera can only save a 38MP RAW or a 38MP JPEG along with the usual 5MP JPEG.)

Out-of-camera JPEG, ISO 100, 38MP

100% crop

Adobe ACR, ISO 100, NR 0, sharpening

100% crop

Out-of-camera JPEG, ISO 100, 5MP

100% crop

Adobe ACR, 38MP, downscaled to 5MP

100% crop

High ISO Noise Reduction

Noise reduction does its job by blurring noise. Some noise reduction algorithms are more intelligent than others but, no matter what camera you are shooting with, noise reduction inevitably also blurs some fine detail. Even with noise reduction "switched off" some of it is applied to your images. Enthusiast compact cameras and digital SLRs at least give you some control over this parameter.

This is not the case for smartphones. You are stuck with the amount of noise reduction that is deemed right by the engineers. On the Nokia Lumia 1020 you can apply your own noise reduction mix by converting the device's DNG files. In this section we are having a closer look at the Nokia's high-ISO Raw files.

Processing in Adobe ACR or any other Raw processor allows you to apply noise reduction to your personal taste.

When shooting in auto mode the 1020 never really goes higher than ISO 800 and relies on its image stabilization system to get a sharp image. The night scene below was even captured at ISO 640. At this sensitivity some loss of fine detail and grain is visible at 100%, but overall Nokia's full-resolution output still looks pretty good.

When we convert the DNG file with both color and luminance noise reduction set to zero, it becomes clear how much noise is in the image. There is a lot of grain and color blotches, but the image also looks a touch sharper. Increasing the color noise reduction to 25 gets rid of most of the color noise, but preserves most of the detail. However, the 1020's JPEG engine is doing a decent job at higher ISOs and the additional amount of detail you get through Raw processing is limited.

We also produced a "clean" version of the Raw file by setting luminance noise reduction to 45, in addition to the color NR. The end result is not too dissimilar to the out-of-camera JPEG, albeit with a little less sharpening applied.

Out-of-camera JPEG, ISO 640

100% crop

Adobe ACR, no noise reduction

100% crop

Adobe ACR, Color NR 25

100% crop

Adobe ACR, Color NR 25, Lum NR 45

100% crop

We went through the same procedure as above with an ISO 1600 DNG file. We had to set the Lumia to manual ISO to make it capture this shot in a dimly illuminated gallery at ISO 1600. As you can see the out-of-camera JPEG is pretty clean, but also a little soft. It's obvious that low-contrast detail is being lost through noise reduction. With all noise reduction set to zero, chroma noise becomes very intrusive - but you can see that some additional low-contrast detail is hiding behind all the noise.

Again, applying some color noise reduction eliminates all the chroma noise and generates an image with good detail but a lot of grain. Reducing the grain by increasing luminance noise reduction makes the image look cleaner, but swallows some low-contrast detail and generates an overall softer look.

Comments

Lord Jesus, this thing is so over-hyped that it's not even funny! So is the image quality of my Lumia 1520, love the phone, but the image quality leaves a lot to be desired and focusing is slow as hell!

What I would use the Nokia raw files for is tonal adjustment. In my previous reply I found highlight recovery was possible but limited. Shadow recovery offers more lattitude but you put up with more noise. However, it's very possible to pull a really good, nicely balances picture out of the dng's.

compared to how much lattitude you have vs a m4/3 raw file? The m 4/3 offers probably 2 stop advantage at either ends, allowing much more extreme push and pulls. So the Nokia dng are limited but there's a lot that can be done within that limit.

being able to REALLY edit the images from a camera phone is a dream come true. it's not always practical to carry around a dslr, but i always have my phone on me. the 1020 is the best solution for my needs, mostly taking notes, and quick snaps, and when i want more, it delivers.

i have yet to use a camera phone that is as capable in the image department, or whose output affords as much editing latitude. i know that the 808 is supposed to outperform the 1020, but i have never seen one in the wild.

Also one can edit jpegs. So of course one can edit jpegs from any camera phone. Here I guess the "really" makes your point.

The problem is as I'm sure you know: Editing is not limited to raw. Raw allows much more flexibility, including extraction, but that's only part of editing. So back to "really" suggesting WB, NR tone, etc, but why not just stay "have raws instead of jpegs"?

However it's not clear that you understand that jpegs can also be edited, so "edit" is not a word one uses when talking about raws. But yes I missed your point because I ignored the preposition "from". And I already acknowledged this point above.

yeah.. that's what i had gathered.. but it took a while for a raw editor to appear on ios, so.. while i'm not holding my breath, i'm not giving up hope that there will be one, yet.

no problemo buddy, it's easy to get swept up in the moment, especially when reading about the things one is passionate about. As of this moment, i have yet to settle on an in camera jpeg editor, for my 1020, mostly because the nokia jpeg engine itself is decent enough for snaps, and i'm not into 'apping' images. Also, the built in edit funtionality of the nokia software lacks considerably.

the lack of apps for windows platform is heavily documented though, so, i kind of expected to wait, going in.

Ok, Nokia raw gives slightly better DR but slightly grainier/noisy look than Nokia jpeg, it's a trade off. But how about technically comparing it to an ordinary DSLR or M4/3? I can't imagine people suddenly shedding their cameras for Nokia phones even as hobbyists. Another gimmick for wannabes.

Smart phones are so good now as phones and phablets that people chose their phones on things like screen quality, physical size, robustness, photo quality ect. Also there is a huge compact camera market that can be eaten into

It may be a little gimmicky but the smartphone market is very competitive and everyone is looking for a way to differentiate. Based on their recent offerings it appears that Nokia is focused on sparking the interest of people more into photography than the average smartphone user. While it would be interesting to see a side by side of these RAW files verses those of APS-C or m4/3 cameras a better comparison would be against enthusiast compact cameras with similarly sized sensors.

at the very least it is very useful for white balance corrections too. But a lot about images is somewhat a matter of personal taste...tonality, colors, contrast etc...you can modify all these parameters to your liking. It's not only about "optimizing" IQ, it's more about optimizing them for your taste.

Even if it is marketing tactic (like the megapixel wars of mid-2000s) the fact of the matter is those who can/will use it are going to benefit from it. Due to the ultra competitive nature of the smartphone industry I'm sure all flagship smartphones will offer this within 2 years (probably less). That competition will lead to better sensors and RAW files so the "serious users" need not worry if they don't always have their primary/walk-around camera with them.

What if you want a camera with decent image quality in a pocketable package? The Sony RX100 JPEG quality is good but RAW gives more headroom in many situations. The sensor is very much smaller than APSc

Jogger is likely one of those types who thinks it's easy to to adjust colour+WB starting with a jpeg and propounds the argument that smaller sensors are noisy no matter what and noise reduction is the only reason to shoot raw.

Options are always better than no options. It looks like you can squeeze out a little, maybe even a lot depending on how much you value extra detail and flexibility. That sky in the shot with the building is horrendous in JPEG. If I had the option, I'd always shoot with RAW knowing at the minimum I can squeeze out a JPEG of the same quality.

With that said, imaging on the smartphone is going nowhere until we can figure out how to either increase the size of the sensors or there's a breakthrough in sensor technology.

Since my Lumia 1020 offers RAW ... I'm using it. In most cases I use it, because I don't have the ability, like with iPhone apps, to set a a bright and a dark point for exposures. So I often underexpose my images to have details and no clipping in the brightest areas.

This ends up having some noise in the dark parts of an image when I raise the exposure in the dark parts in ACR.The Nokia 1020 often tends to have vertical banding in the noise when I do that, but TOPAZ DeNoise is perfect for that, because it has a specialized setting for the vertical banding.

The JPGs out of the Nokia are very good, but since it is possible I prefer using the DNG files.

There is very little to be recovered on those RAW files since the scene's DR is too much for any camera (maybe except for FF).Anyway, the article above limited itself to 5MP output making it seem that RAW is useless.

I'm always amazed how well lightroom works with my 808 jpegs. It almost (not quite) feels like working with a RAW file. Has anyone else had that experience and how does working with the 808 JPEG files compare to the 1020 RAW files?

To me Out of Camera JPEGs have more contrast in the noise tests and not much, enough, details recovered when using manual noise reduction. With the ACR sharpening you do get a bit more details but it's obviously lost if not used at full 38 MP resolution so not much use other then landscapes. The lack of highlights and even little shadow detail recovery is very disappointing and in my opinion the largest usefulness of Raw makes little to no point in shooting other then JPEG.

I would have liked to see a comparison of manual crop processed RAW to a JPEG zoomed in to maximum to see if we can get more details and better noise when we lose that 38 MP to 5 MP with no down sampling.

If they would recover some more highlights and and shadows in jpeg already like Sony with the automatic dynamic range optimizer RAW becomes more and more useless. I shoot jpegs on all my Sony cameras and if I didn't make really big mistakes in exposure (which thanks to EVF almost never happens) I always like the output. Fuji has the same approach. In camera correction and good jpeg processing, good enough even for professionals.

I really don't see a big market/need for RAW editors for mobile devices

based on what I can see from the crops, the out of camera JPG is superior to ACR converted raw with noise reduction. ACR without noise reduction is sharper and has more details than out of camera JPG but then the result seems rather noisy.

Be aware that the 1020's ISO 1600 may be close to ISO 400 on comparable cameras.

In general, I agree but I think it depends what you are looking for in each specific shot. For example, in the horse tail crop I would have taken the last version (acr plus noise reduction) and tried to get the noise to look a little more film like, if possible.

Noting that I don't have a camera of any sort on my phone, it's a phone, I too think the jpegs are better than the conversions overall. I'm sure that some minor tweaking with the backlight adjustment in PhotoScape, my default simple and easy to use PES, would bring out similar detail in the "horse tail" image, if editing on my PC. Analysing and editing images like this to a micro level, quickly reaches the point of diminishing returns IMO. So much so that you can easily get to the point where you give up, start over, and get an acceptable result with just a couple of clicks.

I have allready pretty much experience with developing 1020 DNG pictures. I agree in general with the conclusions of this review but like to remark that in ACR you can pull out details from the highlights when you capture your shots at minus 0.7 stop. Of course you should be carefull not to crank up the shadows too much in ACR.